


Sharp Smiles

by Sparcina



Series: How Frostiron Could Have Started [28]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Banter, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Halloween, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Pumpkins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparcina/pseuds/Sparcina
Summary: Carving pumpkins with the resident God of Mischief is exactly what the doctor recommends (including Tony, with his PhD in Engineering Physics).
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: How Frostiron Could Have Started [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/557473
Comments: 16
Kudos: 120
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	Sharp Smiles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iambi_Thilla_Meena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambi_Thilla_Meena/gifts).



> PS: this fic is part of an exchange and has been re-dated for author reveals.

Carving pumpkins was dangerously entertaining. 

It was nothing like cutting vegetables, although there were pointy objects involved, and vegetables (or something else entirely, depending on the source). The whole activity revolved around the notion of fun, which was something Tony could really get behind right now. Even if Loki shared the room with him.

Scratch that: _especially if_ Loki stood mere feet away stabbing pumpkins.

Not quite the reformed type, the God of Mischief, Fake Deaths, and All Things Sharp was nonetheless consulting for the good guys nowadays, and the only beings he seemed interested in dicing into pieces were their common enemies, and as of tonight, pumpkins in all shapes and forms.

As a result, the communal kitchen was kind of a mess, but Tony paid good money for other people to clean up after him. The fact that the other residents of the Tower were giving the room a wide berth was a nice bonus. Okay, so _maybe_ Loki holding a knife and using it with clear skill didn’t make for a comfortable sight, but Tony had never let danger stand in the way of his fun. And he was having so much fun right now, even if his own blade wasn’t as wicked sharp as Loki’s own alien weapons. It did things to Tony, watching Loki stab one harmless pumpkin after the other. If he was being honest with himself, watching Loki handle a knife under all kinds of circumstances tended to do things to him.

(Watching him, period.)

(Merely thinking about him did the trick, too. But then, Fury wouldn't know how to make a meeting interesting to save his life.)

“Do you want me to sharpen it for you?”

Tony didn’t quite startle, but the tip of his not-quite-sharp-enough knife cut the air awfully close to his left index finger. Which he really wanted to keep attached to the rest of his hand, thank you very much.

“That thing?” He waved the knife at Loki. Someone with survival instincts would have refrained from doing what could be constructed as a threat, but Tony didn’t have those. And besides, surely Loki wouldn’t feel threatened by a _mortal_ holding a knife? “Sure. Go right ahead.”

Loki did, and Tony wondered if all the green sparks were part of the process, or merely a way for Loki to show off. Knowing the god, it could be either.

“Thanks.”

“Not that it will help you much,” Loki replied airily.

Tony pouted at him. “Not everyone has had centuries to perfect their skills, Reindeer Games.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Or what, you’re going to pretend I’m one of your pumpkins and stab me?”

Loki arched an eyebrow at him. “I do believe there are more… interesting ways to break that annoying habit of yours.”

Tony didn’t know what to make of a threat that sounded a lot like an invitation, and he probably should, given how often Loki managed to convey both at the same time. He cleared his throat. “Probably,” he agreed, and returned to his pumpkin.

His knife was now extra sharp, which turned to be a good thing, but also a bad one, because the smile he meant to draw in the orange flesh ended up way too sharp and sinister. Then again, all of Loki’s pumpkins grinned predatorily at the appliances, so Tony guessed he was doing all right. He found himself smiling in spite of all the stress that had come to rest on his shoulders. The last few days had been… stressful, to use Pepper’s friendly vocabulary. He’d spent them juggling contracts he hadn’t wanted to sign (Pepper breathing down his neck like a dragon about to burn him to a crisp), S.H.I.E.L.D.’s unwelcome involvement in his latest projects (Fury having way too many eyes for a guy with a patch), and the latest batch of aliens intent to annihilate all life on Earth and on the neighboring planets (there had been rumors about Venus). All in all, he was running on very little sleep, and the kind of mood he was in cleared any room he entered. Except for the kitchen. Because Clint liked his ass o’clock vegan pancakes, and Thor never stopped eating.

Now, however, Loki stood in that very kitchen with a sharp blade and an army of pumpkins, so Clint kept to the ventilation shaft and Thor pretended he wasn’t hungry.

“I’ve never done this before,” Tony reflected out loud.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“It doesn’t?”

Loki picked his latest work of art and lifted it to eye level, scrutinizing its sharp features. He looked a lot like Hamlet holding a human skull, and Tony shivered at the memory of the play he’d watched decades ago. He wasn’t afraid, not exactly. Even back when Loki had shown a predilection for throwing people through windows, the god had not frightened him.

“You’re mortal, Anthony.” Loki set down the pumpkin and nudged it closer to one twice as big and spooky. “You couldn’t possibly have done half the things I did.”

“Not everyone is an immortal god.”

“I am by no means immortal.”

“But you’re a god,” Tony argued, and bit down his tongue while his brain-to-mouth filter rebooted.

“That I am,” Loki purred.

His grin matched his pumpkins’. It was the one Barton called ‘his fucking manic serial-killer grin’, but Tony knew better. Loki was having fun. When Loki was in the mood to kill something (or someone), he didn’t look nearly as happy. In the other Avengers’ defense, they didn’t spend nearly as much time learning to read Loki’s face as Tony did. And Jarvis had statistics to prove it.

 _Well_. Tony looked down at his own pathetic attempts at art and began to consider actual cooking. They could grill all those seeds, right? Someone qualified (Bruce) could probably stand guard and make sure Tony didn’t burn down the whole kitchen.

Or, he could ask Loki.

The god’s eyes hadn’t left him, and Tony would have given a small fortune to know what the god was thinking.

He supposed he could do the next best thing and ask. Which he did.

“I’m thinking about teaching you how to properly handle that knife.”

Tony made a point not to startle when the god teleported at his back, and he definitely didn’t shiver when Loki reached around him to adjust his grip on the knife, pressing his front to Tony’s back like they did that every day. Dancing around each other.

(They really did, though. Jarvis had a whole folder documenting it.) 

“Now look very attentively, Anthony,” Loki said, lips brushing his ear, and guided his hand to cut slowly into orange flesh, tracing the outline of an eye. And then, a nose. A mouth followed, wide and full of teeth.

“See?” Loki whispered.

The lights went off, and a flame appeared inside the pumpkin, lighting its features from the inside out.

“Very nice,” Tony said. He didn’t move.

Loki pressed his lips right under his ear, and chuckled when Tony let out the kind of sound he normally kept to more private rooms. “Very nice indeed.”

*

Clint got one look at the two men definitely not involved in pumpkin carving and decided that his fancy vegan pancakes could wait.


End file.
